It is like they are twins or something

Now I want to state up front that I really don’t care what anyone does with their body. If you have to go through immense surgery just to feel comfortable in your own skin than by all means go ahead as long as I don’t have to end up paying for it with my tax dollars. But I really wish someone would have told Chastity Bono that the Charlie Weis look is not the one to choose. No one: man, woman, Charlie Weis, or member of the Hutt clan should aspire to looking like Charlie Weis. Still, if this makes Chastity happy then by all means congratulations.

(Props to Kim to pointing me to E Online for the photo and the absolutely uncanny resemblance.)

Oh, and Charlie Weis didn’t cost us the Boston College game this year! For the first time since before I was actually a Notre Dame student. Well, he tried really hard to screw it up and I agree with DJ why the BC defenders didn’t jump on the eight yard out route at least once is beyond me but we did finally beat Boston College. It does look like my prediction that Notre Dame should go 9 – 3 will come true. Again, no reason why we shouldn’t go 11 – 1 as USC is the only team we play with more talent but Charlie will typically lead us to two losses that we shouldn’t have (Michigan and Pitt as my prediction.)

The other big news from the weekend is that Obama has declared a national emergency due to a rash of zombie outbreaks. Oh wait, that press release wasn’t meant for the public. I mean swine flu. Just ordinary, everyday swine flu. Ignore any rumors you hear about the living dead feasting on human flesh. No, I don’t know why Congress has decided to all go to the Canadian wilderness. I assume it is for the health care debate. Just carry on, all is well…(checks supplies, rereads the Zombie Survival Manual.)

Actually swine flu is a national emergency right now and you would think that I would be more nervous about it. I mean, I am someone who did at least make some preparations for Y2K (made sure my car was filled with gas, hit the cash station, checked the computer code on my robot butler) and I travel all the time. Yet on this one I am not overly concerned. I did get my regular flu shot and am taking every precaution that I can, which is mainly washing my hands a lot, but otherwise I am not too up in arms about it. That is not to say that it isn’t a serious manner and those most at risk should be vaccinated. However, it is not as though we are living through a retelling of The Stand. Though if you start having dreams about an old woman in a farmhouse in Nebraska you might take it as a bit of a sign.

Best of 120 Minutes: I am going to try to bring back my regular music video postings. 120 Minutes of Sunday, the Wednesday Night Music Club on Wednesdays and your 80’s weekend rewind on the weekends. Mainly because I enjoy searching for music videos online but hopefully others will enjoy them as well. We’ll start off by going Dutch with Bettie Serveert’s Ray Ray Rain.



The five random CDs for the week:
1) Liz Phair “Somebody’s Miracle”
2) Damien Rice “O”
3) Howie Day “The Madrigals EP”
4) Neko Case “Live from Austin Texas”
5) Cowboy Junkies “Open Road”

Plus they won't give me ESPN Classic

Swine Flu Fun Fact # 83: So far the best hope for a cure has come from a rather intelligent spider who is spinning detailed phrases into webs in order to help produce a vaccine. Sadly, due to the length of most medical terminology, the ineffectiveness of web based communication and the fact that we all know that she is just going to die in the end and leave us crying progress has been much slower than was previously anticipated.

I think I need to go on one of my regularly scheduled cable company rants here. Comcast has possibly the most ass backwards system that I have ever seen for a cable company. First off, my On Demand service works only on every other Tuesday, which you think would be a rather pressing issue for them as it prevents me from purchasing wrestling pay per views at my convenience. I’m not going to complain there as it keeps me from wasting my own money. Second, at random intervals the on screen program guide completely fails and every channel suddenly broadcasts “To Be Announced”. Though I have to admit that is a rather adequate description of the programs shown today.

Third, after I reset the program guide (by unplugging the box and restarting it) half the time I find that the program guide is completely inaccurate. There is nothing worse than sitting down, launching a program from your DVR and discovering that all you have done is record an hour of something you have no interest in seeing. Plus, there is no way that they are correct in saying that Obama is addressing the nation again tomorrow. They must be reusing the program guide from two weeks ago.

Finally, their commercials suck. Showing people in a vague Sims like environment singing very poorly. If I wanted to watch the Sims I would turn on my computer. Actually, I wouldn’t as I’ve decided that it is slightly better to live one’s own life than to simulate it on a computer. More importantly though, I’m not sure what Comcast is promoting in these general commercials. It’s not like they are touting one specific product or a new bundle that will create new revenue. They seem to be pushing how awesome they are in an attempt to gain new customers. Problem is they are the cable company so it is not like we have a choice in the matter. I live in an apartment and want cable and high speed internet. I don’t really have any other options so I’d rather you cut ten cents from my bill than show really bad commercials.

Quick! We need to find Rob Lowe and that guy from Coach!

Your Swine Flu Fun Fact # 27: If during the Swine Flu epidemic you begin to have prophetic dreams of a) a kind old African American woman sitting on a porch in Nebraska and b) a man with long hair and piercing black eyes in Las Vegas I would highly recommend making the trip to Nebraska. Mainly because it means you will have the opportunity to make out with Molly Ringwald. Oh, and if you see Kareem Abdul-Jabar with a cardboard sign proclaiming the end of the world I would take that as a sign to start packing.

In reality, as of right now I would view the whole Swine Flu thing with an air of caution. One of the problems with our new environment of constant information is that we now hear the same news stories multiple times a day and as a result we lose our sense of scale. Right now we have a flu outbreak that has proven fatal in Mexico and non-fatal elsewhere. While it seems to spread easily it doesn’t appear to have a high mortality rate. Basically, if it spread easily and had a high mortality rate the numbers from Mexico should be a lot higher. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t all be aware of the situation and taking the proper steps to avoid the flu. Just that the world is not going to end at this precise moment.

But given our media fueled lives that is entirely the perception that we are given. It is a top story on all of the websites. News broadcasts feature it as their lead story and the 24 hour news networks talk about it 72 times a day. Your twitter feed is filled with people discussing it (whereas my twitter feed is nonexistent because no matter what anyone says, twitter is idiotic.) Compare this to the Swine Flu fears of the 1970’s. Then all you would do is read about it in the morning paper and get an update by Walter Cronkite in the evening. The screaming heads on television really up the paranoia to an unmistakable degree.

At some point there is such a thing as too much information. Except in this case there isn’t enough information. We are just being fed the same minimal data over and over again in various forms until we stress out to in an inordinate degree. Networks understand that when they flash the Breaking News graphic that it will get your attention even if it is about a story that is of no interest to anyone. Any news regarding Anna Nicole Smith, now or at any time in the past, could never be considered breaking news but it was certainly sold as such. It is what makes us a bit of a slave to our machines. We know that if we fall out of the information loop that we will feel ostracized from the rest of society but we also know that most of the information in the information loop is completely gibberish.

So just keep all of this in mind as you watch the news this week. It is quite possible that there might be a time when worrying is the proper course of action. Right now it isn’t.

Beware of pork

Have to start off by officially marking the passing of Bea Arthur. Thank you for being a friend.

(For all of the jokes that have been made about the Golden Girls, and lord knows that there are a lot of them, you have to give credit to any show that is still well known nearly twenty years after its heyday. You never hear any references to Barney Miller (well, except in regards to Abe Vigoda’s awesomeness) and even Family Ties has been pushed to the dustbin of history. But mention The Golden Girls to anyone and they will know precisely what you are talking about.)

As for the swine flu outbreak I knew that our love for bacon was going to come back to haunt us eventually. Is it our fault that they are so tasty? I rank this as slightly above allergy season and significantly below zombie apocalypse on the threat level indicator. Mainly the best thing to do right now is practice good hygiene, stay hydrated and keep your machete nearby in case zombies approach. I have said it before and I will say it again: blades don’t need reloading. This will be even more important in the case of an onslaught of zombie pigs.

In other news I spent much of the weekend watching the NFL Draft. That might on the surface sound like a boring way to spend the weekend but given who I was with it went from watching people read names at regularly scheduled interviews to something a bit more transcendent. Ok, it still has a lot of phone book moments where for some reason you are now spending ten minutes of your life intrigued as to the inner workings of a guard from Baylor but it was more fun than it should be. Some random notes from the day:

1) Best description of the draft: The world’s most expensive pick up game

2) I don’t know on what planet Matt Stafford is the number one pick. I didn’t consider him one of the top college quarterbacks last year. Hell, I didn’t even consider him one of the top SEC quarterbacks last year. They describe him as a proven winner but what precisely has Georgia won?

3) I think it should be an official rule that Mark Sanchez always be referred to as “Dirty” Mark Sanchez. To be honest I’m not sure why a professional wrestler hasn’t used that name yet.

4) The only thing worse than being drafted by Seattle is being forced to wear a neon lime green hat moments after you are drafted.

5) This year’s most awkward analyst award goes to Herm Edwards giving advice on the Chief’s draft selection. At some point I would just like him to go, “Well, given that I ran the team into the ground the best thing for them to do is the exact opposite of what I would think.”

Best of 120 Minutes: Hum. Because you have probably already forgotten the words.

HUM MTV Music

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Tanya Donnelly “Beautysleep”
2) Scott Miller and the Commonwealth “Thus Always to Tyrants”
3) Son Volt “Okemah and the Melody of Riot”
4) The Subdudes “Live at Last”
5) Amy Farris “Anyway”